I am back
In my city
On a track
White and pretty
Snow and ice
Nothing more
It looks nice
What a chore
To tread through
Coated ways
And into
Restless days
Work, not rest
Is now best.
There is a point - there always is a point
When where I am snaps into where I've been
When everything is suddenly in joint
And I can then, quite rapidly, begin
To slide the pieces carefully together
Each street or sidewalk in its proper place,
Connected by the necessary tether
To where it lives in my conceptual space.
Only when that happens can i stride
Into the dark secure in my own sense
That what is outer matches what's inside
And I am safe at least in reference.
Before the halflit streets were threatening
Now they are dim, and that's a different thing.
Do not imagine I am less myself
When I am elsewhere than my normal haunts.
I do not shove my soul onto a shelf
With my collection of stuffed megadonts
To gather dino dust and be forgotten
Until the weight of time has made them stone.
No, I do nothing quite so misbegotten;
I am myself companioned and alone,
In warm familiar comforts and cold strange
Distant metropolises where I wander
Around their unrememberable range;
Myself no matter what I have to ponder,
Always at heart the same, and therefore true
To my eternal self, my life, and you.
It's strange to go somewhere I like so much
Without you. Strange to walk alone these roads
Only imagining how you'd like such and such,
What would amuse you, what would give you loads
To tell our other friends about. I bear
Your presence with me, but that cannot be
A substitute for you. I often stare
At signs that signal where I know that we
Would turn because you wanted to, and sigh
Because you are not here to make me go.
I swear - you must believe - I really try
To photograph all these so I can show
Them all to you, but electronic means
Hardly amount unto a hill of beans.
Every place I go
She is here with me
In my soul. I know
Just instinctively
What she'd love to see
What would make her cry
Where she'd like to be
What she'd walk on by-
Also I know why,
What makes her that way.
She is always nigh
In my heart each day.
Someday, I hope, too
She'll be in my view.
A world of white suggests, but does not show,
A snowfall imminent, or happening;
It could just be a mist, instead of snow
Settling through clouds that touch and cling
Seeming to make it white. But having trod
The ground outside, and seen it blow around,
Catch on the tendrils of the frozen sod,
Huddle in corners, glide across the ground,
And altogether act as snow should do,
I think it would be impudent and rude
To counterclaim against a truth I knew
And claim the white mist was not all imbued
With petal-snow, that falls in loops and whirls
And blows about in constant pellet-curls.
I love the ionizing smell of rain
The confirmation that my sense was right
The clouds weren't scattering sufficient light
And it was coming. Umbrellas are vain
Against Chicago tempests, and they strain
Under a puff of wind - at such a sight
As this, a stormcloud putting drops in flight,
Each gust strikes them as if against the grain
And hurls them outward. Revel in the wet,
Do not pretend to shield it from your skin
For rest assured it will, it will get in
And soak your insolence. So therefore set
Your fond attempts aside, and say with me
I love the rain in superfluity.
